Imagine people lined up at the Microsoft Store

Nothing makes a true Apple fan choke on their cornflakes more than the idea of people lined up and waiting outside the Microsoft store to purchase a product. The most charitable of commentators have suggested that the Microsoft retail stores are clones of the Apple Store. One experience that hasn’t so far been replicated at a Microsoft store is the sort of lines that Apple stores get on the day a new product is released. But what if Microsoft released the new Surface tablet first at Microsoft stores before making them generally available elsewhere? Surface has got Microsoft fans excited. Enough would line up that it would get on the local news – if only because enough people would be wryly amused at the idea that fans of Microsoft might exhibit the same sort of herding behavior as fans of Apple. Some theorize that Surface is an experiment by Microsoft to show OEMs “how to do a tablet that can compete with the iPad”. Part of that experience is the launch day melodrama. The Microsoft stores are perfect stages for that melodrama. @orinthomas